Since joining the team earlier this year Dave has worked closely with the Mars Rovers Lead Mechanical Engineer Rob Adlard, and has recently been invited to work on the design of the payload for the rocket to be launched in New Mexico later this year.

On the team, some Dave’s main responsibilities have included:

Assisting with the design requirements for the actuators (servos, steppers etc)
Optimisation of the main arm design on the Mars Rover
The design of the science module
Mathematical calculations to determine hardware requirements.
Assisted with the sourcing and validation of hardware, to ensure components meet requirements
Currently completing computations on pressure vessels for the rocket

Living in Liverpool, Dave tries to visit the Open University campus as frequently as he can to meet face-to-face with the team, however being unable to drive, he does need to convince his wife Melissa to bring him down for the weekend.

Back in Liverpool, when he’s not studying towards his Master’s Degree, he enjoys hill walking, camping and spending time with friends and family.

Dave adds:

“Both projects provide Open University students an amazing opportunity to apply their study to achieve something they can be proud of.

For me personally, I enjoy the challenge of designing and building something that must perform flawlessly every single time. That together with a fantastic team of students from all different disciplines, makes the hours spent working in these projects worth every minute.

The OU has a world class reputation in planetary robotics, and as an OU engineering student i aim to demonstrate what OU students are capable of creating at the competitions.

For all of this to happen of course we do require funding. We are currently actively crowd funding to complete both projects and ensure we can compete against 52 other Universities in the USA, including MIT and Harvard.